


Under Ice

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, PTSD Asbel, Sibling Incest, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2018-12-22 03:17:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11958567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: Family tragedy and a divorce divides the Lhant siblings. Seven years later, reunited, neither Hubert nor Asbel are the people they used to be.A series of short connected stories about the dysfunctional Lhant family.





	1. blue shell

 

Seven years is a long time.

Long enough to become another person entirely, you think, as you thumb the old pizza leaflet in your dressing gown pocket, god knows where it came from. You can't even remember the last time you ordered pizza.

Hubert leans forward on the settee, hands on the controller and eyes stuck to the screen. You don't remember that either: that single minded determination as Hubert wipes the floor with some poor chumps from Finland at Mariocart. Hubert seems softer in your memories, somehow, although you don't know if the change is in Hubert himself or if time has roughed down the edges of your memories, made them gentler.

Your brother hasn't smiled, once, since he stepped into your house.

 _Our_ house, you correct yourself.

Despite this, however, you continue to skulk around the corner of the kitchen, hands in your pockets, until Hubert calls out, “Is there something you want?”

Busted.

Guilty without really knowing why, you shuffle into the living room. Your slippers have the backs kicked down. Hubert doesn’t look away from the screen.

“Just getting a drink,” you say, although it occurs after you say it that this lie would be more convincing if you'd brought a drink with you.

“Can I sit?” you say instead, by way of apology.

A shrug. “It's your house.”

“It's yours, too.” Spoken aloud, it sounds even less convincing. Rather than the assured voice you'd meant to use, the words feel flimsy, a paper facade. Hubert ignores you in favour of blue shelling Kooper, which is fair.

You sort of want to retreat to your bedroom, to blot out of the complicated feelings of the day with the heavy thump of bass, but you force yourself to stay. You've made it this far.

So you sit.

Your mother had told you, over a dodgy phone line wreathed in static from the Emirates: in September, Hubert would be attending the same Sixth Form as you. You'd been thrilled to have your brother back, up until the point a stranger had set his bag down on the kitchen counter and you'd wondered where your baby brother had gone in those chillingly cold eyes.

He hasn't looked at you, either, since he arrived.

There had been so much you'd wanted to ask, but Hubert had brought with him a deafening silence, that even Kerri, with her hand-wringing and loud, anxious laughter hadn't been able to fill.

“Where is he?” your brother had asked. _He_. Hubert's mouth produced the word with distaste.

You'd hooked a wry smile. “Had to fly to Edinburgh, emergency meeting with one of the directors. He hasn't changed much.”

Aston was only dependable in his absence. Seven years hadn't altered that.

Kerri's silent disapproval was loud. You didn't care. Aston's absence was common ground. You and Hubert had been allies as children. You'd weathered your parents' stormy and painful divorce; you could weather this.

But instead, Hubert replied, “I see.” He gazed over to study the kitchen with its marble counter-tops and plethora of pans as though he'd never before stepped foot there.

Maybe he hadn't, a small, vindictive voice whispered.

 

Even now, he still won't look at you.

The only light is the blue phosphorescence of the television, bright in Hubert's eyes. It makes you think of sunlight on frozen water, which makes your throat constrict, tight and painfully, despite the years that have passed.

Before you can begin to self-castigate with endless “if only I hadn't'”s you force yourself back into the present. You speak, if only to fill the silence.

“You got pretty good at that, huh?”

There's something about the darkness that makes you speak softly.

“I suppose so.”

We're going to be living together, you think. You're going to have to talk to me eventually.

Although the thought occurs: though you and your father share the same house (most of the time) and although you talk (some of the time) – you very rarely actually _say_ anything to one another.

You ask: “Got another controller?”

For the first time, Hubert looks at you. The glow of the tv seems to leech the hostility of his eyes. Even if it's just an illusion, you'll take it.

“You want to play?” he asks. He quickly covers his surprise with a healthy coating of skepticism, eyeing you like you have some other, weird ulterior motive.

“I used to kick your butt at this,” you say, and although he still shoots a look of suspicion at you, he tosses you the controller.

“We'll see,” he says.

Hubert kicks your ass.

He leans further forward into the TV's glow, ignoring you and your attempt at banter and complaints when he shells you. He still always plays as Yoshi, just like when he was kid. When he slaughters you a third, final time, you lean back, muttering, “I remember being better at this.”

Hubert presses the power button, plunging the room in an abrupt darkness.

“You haven't changed much,” he says.

You hazard a tentative smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You did always hate losing to me,” the darkness says. The click of the door is the only indication that your brother has left.

His departure leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You thumb the old leaflet in your pocket: you'd thought about asking Hubert if he wanted to get pizza.

The thought punctures you like a needle of frost: that perhaps, Hubert blames you.

You press the balls of your palms to your eyes, to clear away the after-image of your sister, Sophie on the ice. You press so hard that when you open them, you see static.

If Hubert does blame you, you can't fault him. After all, you blame you, too.


	2. flying fish

The Lhant manor no longer resided in Lhant. Your mother, Kerri, had been interested in the genealogy. Some centuries back there'd been a town, Lhant, in some remote part of Hampshire. There's been a lordship too at one point, diluted down by time and some old forgotten scandal.

The Lhant manor was no longer in Lhant, but Marlow, Buckinghamshire, a large leafy house set by the Thames. That was the house you and your siblings had been raised in, although there was also a flat in London, a house outside Edinburgh and real estate in Quebec. Aston Lhant was no lord, but he lived like one. What had started as his grandfather's wine importation business had long been extended-- there were few lines of business where Mr Lhant did _not_ delve.

Or, so the business columns you'd found claimed. To you, your father was a brusque voice on the end of the telephone, inquiring into your studies, stumbling over a silence neither of you knew how to ford. Moreover, you didn't particularly want to.

On a whim he'd wrenched you out of your old life. Again, it seemed, he'd carelessly uprooted the life you'd sweated and struggled to build in the Emirates, simply because he felt like it.

Mum could repeat the same platitudes over and over. “Your father only wants what's best for you.”

You'd believe it when you saw it.

 

The worst part is: when you get home, he's not even there.

“He had to fly out for the weekend. He'll be back in a few days,” Mum says. You bite your tongue around the retort: that she didn't have to keep making excuses for him. Maybe after so many years, even after the divorce, it was ingrained.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” you say, instead, setting your bag down on the island counter.

“Hubert...” Kerri begins, in _that_ voice.

It's the same old lecture coming on, but she doesn’t get any further than that.

“Hey Mum, is that Cheria with--”

Your brother stops in the doorway. It's past twelve, but he's hardly dressed: pyjamas and slippers and auburn hair stuck up in tufts.

It's bizarre, but even though he's older, Asbel's hardly changed.

Somehow, you can't bear to look at him. You hadn't thought you would be this _angry_. It's a physical force, stoppering your throat. You're furious.

Asbel can't wait to see you again, Mum had told you. Right, you'd replied. It'd explain why he hadn't written, hadn't called, and only now looked as though he'd stumbled his way out of bed.

Your lip curled. So much for your father's illustrious heir.

“Hubert!” He rushes you: for a fearful moment you think he's going to _hug_ you, but perhaps he sees the look on your face. He stops short, voice breathless. You gaze over his shoulder, but still, Asbel is undeterred. “It's so good to see you, Hubert! Mum arrived yesterday, but we didn't know what time your plane was arriving. Did Frederic come to get you? Was your flight OK? You're not jetlagged? I bet it must feel pretty diff--”

You can literally _feel_ the headache starting. “It was fine,” you snap. “Everything was fine.”

It's as though Asbel's strings have been cut. His monologue cut short, his shoulders slump. If you actually managed to _look_ at him, you'd have seen the light fade from his eyes.

“Oh,” he says. “Well. That's good. I'm glad.”

Had he really thought, after seven years of no contact, the two of you could pick up from where you left? That your shared blood would be enough to patch together the differences between you?

But although making Asbel feel bad is a rush, the taste is leaves behind is bitter, lingering at the back of your throat.

“Where is he, anyway?” you ask. You don't have to specify _who_.

“Had to fly to Edinburgh, emergency meeting with one of the directors. He hasn't changed much.” That bitterness is in Asbel too, but it's not enough to connect you.

“I see,” you say, and Asbel looks crestfallen. Mum wrings her hands, dismayed, and you can't help but feel stubbornly pleased by how awkward you've made this.

For as long as you can remember, your family has been determined to pretend things are _fine_. You want to trample on _fine_ , you want to burn it to the ground.

“I was thinking I'd take the guest room on the bottom floor,” you say.

“Actually, Hubert, we've already prepared--” says Kerri, before you pick up your case and leave down the hall.

 

When you'd stepped into the plane, it'd been from the blisteringly dry heat of the desert. At Heathrow airport, it had sheeted down with fine, grey curtains of rain. You'd looked up, to see a sky bunged up with clouds. You could feel the moisture in the air curling your hair. Immediately, you'd wanted to sneeze.

It's just a year, you tell yourself. Just one year, and you'll be eighteen, able to rid yourself of your family for good.

Outside the guest room in the manor, it's still raining. When your surname was still Lhant, this room had barely been used. It was small, and looked out only over the garden wall. It held no memories: good or bad.

You set your case on the bed, and begin to unpack. Your clothes; your certificates. The only object of sentimental value is the small plastic fish, still in its wrapper.

An old school trip to Corfe Castle. Those stupid hats with ribbons you had to wear. Asbel had only cared about the gift shop. He'd come running to you, out of breath, proud to display his new _fortune telling fish_ he'd bought. The _fish_ was a little silver of plastic that moved when placed on the palm of the hand. Asbel tore open the packet in his excitement and tested it. You'd watched in curiosity, too, as the fish curled on its side, as though it was alive.

See what it means! See what it means!

Your brother had thrust the instruction card at you.

Oh. Um. So turning on its side means... you're in love. Wow. Are you in love, Asbel?

As quickly as he'd torn the wrapper open, Asbel thrust it into your hand.

Here, you take it, he'd said. I can't let Cheria see this. She'd _definitely_ get the wrong idea.

You don't know why you still have it.

On a whim, you place the little strip of plastic on your palm. Not that it means much-- the polymers in the plastic react to moisture, specifically in this case, moisture from the sweat glands in the palm of your hand. Asbel's had flopped on its side not because he was in love, but because he'd pegged it from the gift shop to shove it under your nose.

It's pure scientific curiosity that drives you. You watch as, slowly, the fish turns in on itself, roly-polying towards your index finger.

You consult the faded instruction card, and with a roll of your eyes, toss the thing in the bin. Idiotic.

It had read: ENVY.

 

 


End file.
